I have developed a new theory about why Mr. Cheney waited as long as he did to take responsibility for the shooting. In the early hours after the accident, I am willing to bet that there was uncertainty about whether Cheney's victim might perish. In that case, there would have been clear legal repercussions. Any public statement might have furnished evidence in a legal action.
When they concluded that Whittington's life was not in imminent danger, I am willing to bet that Cheney asked Ms. Armstrong to break the story so he would maintain plausible deniability concerning any statement made as a representation of the facts of the case. Ms. Armstrong, after all, was not a legal representative of the Vice President nor even an official in the Vice President's office.
My bet this morning is that the PR strategy Cheney concocted was upon the advice of counsel. It was less preoccupied with the political ramifications of the shooting than it was concerned about keeping Cheney out of legal jeopardy. Whatever else that would suggest, it probably indicates that Mr. Whittington's medical situation was at the first far more ambiguous than we have been led to believe.
Moreover, Cheney's accepting total culpability last evening on Fox, based upon my theory, almost certainly would suggest that doctors have determined Mr. Whittington will not die as the result of the wounds he suffered from the Vice President's excess of aviancidal exuberance. Now the question becomes, as Jerome a Paris's diary suggests, whether the legal strategy Cheney pursued will mar irreparably the Vice President's political viability.
On that matter, I might suggest a thought: the only time the President has gotten rid of a political operative who was a political liability was Michael Brown after New Orleans. The advantages of getting rid of Brown were not counterbalanced in any way by the advantages of keeping him. If Bush would keep Rumsfeld despite Abu Ghraib, I wonder if he isn't prepared to keep Cheney despite Quailgate.